Since you featured Johnny Heideman in "Whatever Happened to ...?", I thought I'd share some of my memories about the wrestling bears.
When I was a young man working out with my father, I always tried to pin my father, but he was a great defensive wrestler. In the amateurs, I was also a defensive wrestler. When I watched nature films, I realized that bears were natural wrestlers, which meant that he had two qualifications. Number one, balance. It wasn't how strong he was, even though they were very strong. They only needed one or two holds. They could hook your ankle and take you down, then get on top of you. A good wrestler, all he needed was balance, endurance, and as many holds as possible. Here was the rolls-royce of the animal world, that was a wrestler. Wrestlers always like to prove themselves, but how good would they be against a bear.
Three things that a handler does when he finds a bear. He finds a young cub and starts to play with him. He feeds him, nurtures him, and raises him like a child. When they get older, they have them declawed, because it's natural for the claws to come out when the paws go up, and that could cut you in the ring. They also pull their teeth, but leave an upper and lower molar on each side of their mouth, so they can chew their food. They put a muzzle on them, but it has a little hole for the bear to breath through. The handler will tell the wrestler, "Do not get your hands or your fingers near that bears' mouth. He'll want to suck your finger in, then turn sideways and bite it." Luis Martinez lost a finger that way. The last thing is to castrate them.
They used to bring a bear down to Florida every year. Some wrestlers wouldn't have anything to do with the bears, but others loved to work with the bear. These guys had a natural ability to get in there and work a good match with the bear. One of those wrestlers was a very good friend of mine, Johnny Heidman. He stops by every two or three months. He loved to wrestle the bears. He must have wrestled every bear more times than anyone else. Johnny once told me this story.
"One night in Fort Myers, I asked the promoter if he'd mind me getting in the ring with the bear. He said, ‘What are you talking about?' I said, ‘Well, when he gets through wrestling who you got him booked with, can I go in?' He says, ‘Why do you want to do this?' I said, ‘I just want to try it.' I went up into the ring, got the microphone, and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen. I always wanted to wrestle the bear.' In the dressing room, I asked the handler, ‘What do I do?' He says, ‘Well, he likes to wrestle. Come toward him, stand straight, and he'll stand up.'
I did that and, sure enough, he hooked up with me exactly like a wrestler would. The trainer said, ‘Now push him.' When I pushed him, he had been trained to sit down on his butt, put his foot in my stomach, and give me a monkey flip. It was unbelievable how high he pushed me. When I jumped up and came back at him again, he was up and did the same thing again. I asked, ‘What's next?' He said, ‘Get a headlock.' He let me get him in a headlock. When I did, he pushed his paw underneath my armpit and hip tossed me ... three times in a row. I volunteered to work with three different bears during my time in Florida."
Then came the night when Johnny and I were together in Columbus, Georgia. Billy Hines was the booker for Fred Ward. Years before, Billy Hines had been in the carnival. One of the guys he knew from those days called and told him he had a bear. Unfortunately, both Billy and his friend were heavy drinkers. Billy convinced Fred Ward that this fellow had a bear and would bring him to TV on Saturday. The fellow shows up with the bear in the back of an old truck. He puts him on a chain and leads him into the studio, weaving a little bit from the alcohol he had consumed.
Johnny Heidman walked into the trainers' dressing room and asked him, "What kind of bear do you have?" The guys says, "Well, I have a good wrestling bear." Johnny asks, "Is he really good?" He says, "Yeah." Johnny says, "He's got his claws out, doesn't he?" The guy says, "Naw, he won't claw you." Johnny says, "Well, maybe I'd better put on a sweatshirt. What about his teeth? You took them out, didn't you?" He says, "No, he has his teeth, but he has a muzzle on. He won't bite you." Johnny says, "Is he castrated?" The guys says, "No." I yelled from the other end of the dressing room, "Don't worry, Johnny. He won't make love to you."
Johnny was an expert on those bears, and he flat refused to work with him on Columbus TV, so they brought the bear to the Columbus Municipal Auditorium on a Wednesday night. There must have been three thousand watts of hot lights shining onto the mat, which made it tremendously hot. The white mat just soaked the heat up. They brought the bear out to wrestle Mario Galento.
As the bear went into the ring, you could tell he didn't want to be there. The first thing he did was go for the announcer, who took off. Just as he got out of the ring, the bear ripped the cuff of his pants. The bear walks around the ring until the trainer finally got him to sit down. Galento came out, but didn't want to get in the ring. He circled the ring two or three times. When he did get in, he came in behind the bear and grabbed him around the neck. The bear reached up with his paw and gave him a flying mare onto the mat. When he did, it ripped Mario's skull open. Mario rolled out, covered the cut with the red handkerchief that he always carried to the ring, and ran to the dressing room where he took sixteen stitches.
As I watched from the balcony, this bear became enraged! He was leaping up and down, two or three feet into the air, like he was on a mound of fire ants and couldn't get off. With each leap, he would take his paw and dig into the mat. He tore the mat, the underpad, the cardboard, and brought up splinters from the boards. That's how mad he was.
